1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to the field of violin bridges, U.S. Class 84/309.
2. Prior Art
Bridges are used on viol instruments, such as violins, violas, cellos, and bass viols to transfer sound from the strings to the sound box (body) of the instrument. For proper transfer of this sound and also to prevent movement of the bridge, the bridge support feet should be contoured to match the contour of the instrument. This, however, requires that each bridge be contoured to the body of a specific instrument.
In U.S. Pat. No. 3,134,287, a self-adjusting bridge for viol instruments is described. The support feet of this bridge are pivotally coupled to the main body (standard) of the bridge. Rounded tongues on the supports cooperatively engage openings defined by the standard. When the bridge is placed on an instrument, the support feet automatically move (pivot) to match the contour of the instrument.
One difficulty with this prior art bridge is that in some cases the main body of the bridge moves laterally relative to the support feet, (that is, in the direction of the strings). This occurs because the frictional forces relied upon to maintain the coupling of the support feet in the openings of the standard are insufficient.
As will be described, the present invention provides an improvement to this prior art bridge by eliminating this undesirable moving between the standard of the bridge and its support feet.